Pune passport office will now reopen application slots that get cancelled or rescheduled

Due to increased demand, there is a five-week waiting period for getting an appointment under the ‘normal quota’ and three weeks under the ‘tatkal quota’ at Pune Passport Seva Kendra

The passport issuance capacity of the PSKs and POPSKs has increased considerably in recent years. As per Deore, the number of passports issued was considerably higher than that of the previous year in 2022. (Representational Photo)

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Passport applicants will now stand a better chance of getting an appointment date of their choice as the Pune Regional Passport Office (RPO) has started making available for booking the slots that were booked earlier by applicants but subsequently became vacant owing to cancellation or rescheduling. Until now, such slots would go unused.

Due to increased demand, there is a five-week waiting period for getting an appointment under the ‘normal quota’ and three weeks under the ‘tatkal quota’ at Pune Passport Seva Kendra although 1,025 slots are released every day under the ‘normal’ category and 250 under the tatkal scheme. Pune RPO operates 17 Post Office Passport Seva Kendras in various districts under its jurisdiction where 800 normal applications are received every day.

Dr Arjun Deore of Pune RPO said: “Generally, about 12 to 15 per cent of applicants cancel or reschedule their passport appointments due to one or the other reason. Now, we will open up these vacant slots for booking. Vacant slots under the tatkal scheme will be opened for booking at 12 noon and normal scheme appointments will be opened at 8.30 pm. Applicants can book new appointments and even prepone their already booked appointments accordingly.”

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Deore, however, cautioned the applicants who have already booked an appointment of the risk of trying to take advantage of the reopening of vacant slots for earlier dates. He said, “When an applicant attempts to prepone the appointment, s/he agrees to let go of the current appointment and assumes the risk that the newly given appointment maybe even of a later date if the date he’s looking for gets sold out before s/he can stake the claim.”

“In 2022, we issued more than 1,13,000 which was about 50 per cent higher than those issued in 2021. Continuing the momentum, this year in the first two months of 2023, we issued 29,000 more passports compared to the same period in 2022,” said Deore.

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